As UND prepares for a new academic year, the first in many years without the ubiquitous presence of the Sioux name, the debate over use of American Indian names and imagery continues around the country. Continue Reading

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“In Oregon, the state Board of Education adopted the no-exceptions ban against Indian-based names and imagery despite protests that changes would cost thousands of dollars and scrap decades of tradition.”

Oregon was much smarter than the NCAA. In Oregon the controversy will be over in 2-3 year max. The NCAA’s lack of foresight guaranteed it will keep coming back.

As for “scrap[ing] decades of tradition;” that is the most spurious argument of all. It is completely inadmissible. Slavery and the “Southern way of life” was a tradition that cost over 500,000 Americans their lives. Jim Crow was a tradition that kept the wound festering well into the the 20 (some say the 21) century.

Catholics blamed Jews for Christ’s death until a generation ago, despite the Gospel teaching that each and every one of us were the cause of Christ’s death; Jew and gentile alike.

Must be the Protestant reading of the Gospels because I sure don’t see it. Remember the writers of the Gospels were all Jews. When they blamed the Jews they were usually referring to the religious leadership.

In Christianity the Bible is treated as unchanging. The Gospels have not changed in 2000 years, so if the Catholic Church changed its mind, by definition the problem was not with the Gospel, but with its interpretation.

You really need to read up on the history of the gospels, beyond what your ministers told you. Luke was a Gentile, to begin with, so there goes the “all Jews” authorship notion. In brief, the gospels are ahistorical religious propaganda, whose purpose is to turn a Galilean peasant into God. They were never even meant to form a book, as all their contradictions demonstrate.

Gene: Luke’s religious upbringing (Jew or gentile) is far from a settled point in the history of the church. Because he was Greek, and a physician (as well as a historian — both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts are both written as a historical narrative more than an epistle) it has often been assumed he was a gentile.

That is not a uniform view. Even several of the early church fathers were confused and conflicted on this point. My New Testament class spent quite a bit of time dissecting the issue. In the end we simply do not know. The record is unclear.

As for my educational preparation: Reformed Theological Seminary (hence my Calvinist bent). I do not hold a degree but I have enjoyed more than a few classes.

As I mentioned before, I find arguing over the Bible tedious and unproductive (very un Baptist of me). Christianity is a faith. God made it very clear that we as humans do not have what it takes to figure Him out. We are constrained by time and space. He is not.

You either believe or you don’t. It is a personal choice. All of the arguments in the world will not persuade you one way or the other if God does not help you believe.

In other words it is his job. I just put out the truth as I see it and move on.

You will not catch me attending evangelism explosion or sitting at a table at the local Gay Pride parade.

To non believers the Bible is foolishness. You are simply throwing pearls before swine. Why bother? Plus, the Bible and its principles are designed to tell a Christian how to live. They are not a rule book for the rest of the world.

The world is lost. Christian rules do not apply to an unsaved world.

I go nuts when people try to legislate morality or Christianity. That is not who the rules are designed for. The law has never saved anyone.

It is also these misguided and misinformed jokers who have a fit when someone says we are being overrun by Muslim law. They can’t see the plank in their own eye because they are looking for the speck in another’s.

The reason the world hates Christians has nothing to do with Christ and everything to do with His followers. If Christian’s got their own stuff together, then maybe the rest of the world would be interested in what they have to say.

Ok….Just a jump in here with you religious historians……(Well….Lets just say with people whose opinion I respect)….What is it about the whole story of scrafice that these people who profess to love Jesus don’t seem to understand? If thing didn’t happen the way that they did, the Jesuse would have just been another famous religous leader, but I doubt it would have been to the level it was. It was the self sacrifice that made him an eternal marter. Without all of that there’d most likely be a very weak Christian religion if any by today.

According to the myth his being killed was supposed to be part of the plan. So why all the antisemitizam towards Jew for killing or having him killed? I would think they would accept this as one of those “Gods Plans” and move on without condemming them. Strange how some can get this all turned around when if they really followed the New Testimate they’d know that their diety would want them to forgive…..Damn…I think I know too much abgout this stuff for being such a Heathen…

According to Christian theology Christ died for my sins. Because God is righteous & cannot tolerate sin, no one would ever get to heaven because we are all sinners: there is none righteous; no not one. Christ died as the atoning sacrifice for my sins.

Christ died for me, you, Gene, & Always. Who physically killed him is completely irrelevant. No death = no atonement = heaven is empty.

I killed Christ.

The Jews got the blame, but if you want to know who is responsible for Christ’s death you need to look no further than the mirror.

That’s my point…How is this not abundantly clear amung true believers? Without the complete story Christ never completed his total mission. Without that the door to that after life would remain closed forever…….Ah hell….I really can’t continue because now I’m way past anything I can accept……It just seems backwards that people miss that major point and create a blame game…

Make that Pauline theology. The fact his view was accepted at the Council of Nicaea at the command of Constantine does not legitimize it. Jesus was crucified by the Romans for sedition (hence the targum). But none of the NT writers dared blame them for fear of their own life. The Jews became the Pharmakos, the scapegoats.

Always: your “regard” for tradition is amusing, but also a little sad. You fight to uphold everything that is wrong about America and North Dakota and neglect those things that make us special.

Racism is endemic to our being as a country. The Founding Father’s knew that it would eventually tear the country apart, so they punted. The end result was the Civil War. The bad part is, that not even 500,000 American deaths could remove this cancer from our collective souls.

After 236 we are still dealing with its effects. Sure, racism in America is not as overt as it once was (slavery, Jim Crow) but it is still as pernicious. The bad part is because it is no longer as institutionalized, people think it no longer exists.

This issue, as well as several other contemporary examples (the immigration debate, different sentences for powder vs rock cocaine, the number of people of color in politics vs the racial makeup of the population as a whole, etc) shows conclusively that racism is alive and well in the American psyche: just more underground.

America and North Dakota have several traditions that are worth emulating. Race based images is not one of them.

I don’t really know exactly how to express this because on one hand it is very political, but on the other I don’t agree it’s just a right/left situation like other agendas. I’m definately left, but I’ve never considered myself a real liberal. Yet until I had my fill of this draggin on forever I was in definately in the keeping the name camp and so were a lot of people on the left. My point is that even though it was all about certain agenda’s being played out it really wasn’t a basic political fight between the left and right……It was a seperate arena with it’s own sides.

Always: An American tradition worthy of praise. On July 4 a host of immigrants become US citizens. It is a remarkable example of our country’s resilience in the face of an ever-changing world. It is also a reminder that our strength as a country comes from our diversity, not our sameness. Diversity = strength. Homogeneity = weakness and failure.

This one event contained people from over 62 countries. Nothing I read yesterday gave me more hope for the future than this.

Ok…Once again the Herald has shown they’re so addicted to this crap that they can’t let it go….Even though they talk about wanting to stop using the name and doing something positive for the Sioux….Hell….Now they’re reaching to try to kick up more dust before it settles….I doubt they’ll let this damn thing die down for another year or two…They’ll keep finding more riviing stories about such things as someone mentioning the old name at a game or such……Man the Hearld needs an intervention on this subject……Maybe go through some DT’s to shake this out of their system….

Welcome back to the pre 60’s. I know I always rile about right wing pundits and one station in particular, but is there really any surprise about these back steps when the right wing propaganda machine has been encouraging this kind of thinking for several years now…..What’s next…Back to race riots? Most likely not, but seeing things like that is definately a step in the wrong directon….

In reference to the NCAA’s battle with UND on the nickname, the NCAA has shown once again the selective enforcement of the rules that they follow. Schools with a less of an economic impact like UND are told to follow the rules or else, and those that are bigger cash cows (Florida State, Notre Dame) are catered to and allowed to break the rules that other must follow. A great example the NCAA is setting for the youth of America.